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US adds pressure on Qatar to move on labour reform

A recently published United States (US) State Department report on human trafficking provides Qatar with yet another roadmap to counter World Cup-related international criticism of its labour regime. The State Department’s annual review serves as a warning to Qatar, as the clock ticks on an ultimatum by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO last May said that it …

The State Department’s annual review serves as a warning to Qatar, as the clock ticks on an ultimatum by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO last May said that it would establish a Commission of Inquiry if Qatar failed to substantially reform its controversial labour regime.

Such commissions are among the ILO’s most powerful tools to ensure compliance with international treaties. The United Nations (UN) has only established 13 such commissions in its century-long history. The last commission was created in 2010 to put pressure on Zimbabwe.

The increased pressure on Qatar is the result of a perception that the Gulf state has yet to live up to promises of labour reform made after being awarded the 2022 World Cup hosting rights in 2010.

Qatar and several of its institutions, including the supreme committee responsible for organising the cup, have since taken steps to counter abuse of a system that trade unions and human rights groups denounce as modern slavery. Qatar has, however, stopped short of taking steps that would fundamentally reform, if not abolish the system.

Called kafala, the system involves a sponsorship regime for foreign workers who account for some 90 percent of Qatar’s where employees are placed at the mercy of their employers.

Kafala gives employers the unilateral power to cancel residence permits, deny workers the ability to change employers at will, and refuse them permission to leave the country. “Debt-laden migrants who face abuse or are misled often avoid reporting their exploitation out of fear of reprisal, the lengthy recourse process, or lack of knowledge of their legal rights, making them more vulnerable to forced labour, including debt bondage,” the report said.

The State Department, despite acknowledging that the Gulf state had made “significant efforts”, concluded that Qatar had failed to step up its efforts to counter human trafficking in the last year.

The report took Qatar to task on three fronts: the implementation of existing legislation and reforms, its failure to act on a host of issues that would bring the Gulf state into compliance with international labour standards, and its spotty reporting.

The report noted that many migrant workers, despite a ban on forcing employees to pay for their recruitment, continue to arrive in Qatar owing exorbitant amounts to recruiters, and at times have been issued false employment contracts.

Qatar’s ministry of administrative development, labour, and social affairs said earlier this month that it had cancelled the licences of two recruitment agencies and had issued a warning to two other agencies regarding violations of the law governing recruitment.

A ministerial committee has recommended the establishment of a committee that would ensure the regulation of domestic workers, who in Qatar, like in most Gulf states, are viewed as the most vulnerable segment of the workforce because labour laws and reforms do not apply to them.

The report acknowledged that Qatar had initiated its first prosecutions with the conviction of 11 people charged with trafficking, including ones related to domestic workers.

“Female domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to trafficking due to their isolation in private residences and lack of protection under Qatari labour laws,” the State Department said.

The US agency said that many workers continued to complain of unpaid wages. Qatar introduced a wage protection system last November that obligates employers to pay their employees electronically in a bid to ensure that they are paid on time and in full.

The report quoted a 2014 study by Qatar University’s Social and Economic Survey Research Institute as saying that 76% of expatriate workers’ passports remained in their employers’ possession, despite laws against passport confiscation.

Much of the roadmap distilled from the State Departments criticisms and recommendations involve measures that the government could take with relative ease. The measures include the creation of a lead agency for anti-trafficking efforts that would replace the Qatar Foundation for Protection and Social Rehabilitation (QFPSR), which was removed as the government’s central address, and expansion of the new agency’s responsibilities beyond the abuse of women and children.

They further include extending labour law protection to domestic workers and ensuring that any changes to the sponsorship system apply to all workers, enforcing the law banning and criminalising the withholding of passports by employers, and providing victims with adequate protection services and ensuring that staff at protection shelters speak the language of expatriate workers.

Other measures include reporting anti-trafficking law enforcement data, as well as data pertaining to the number of victims identified and the services provided to them and providing anti-trafficking training to government officials.

The report noted that it was “unclear whether the government decreased efforts to protect victims of trafficking due to a lack of government provided statistics in this area, and many victims of forced labour, including debt bondage, likely remained unidentified and unprotected.”

A quick implementation of the roadmap would serve to enhance Qatar’s tarnished credibility and demonstrate its sincerity even if the fundamental problems associated with the kafala system remain unaddressed. The government has sought to eliminate some of the most onerous aspects of kafala in reforms of the sponsorship system that are scheduled to take effect in December.

The reforms would eliminate indefinite-term labour contracts and replace them with five-year agreements. Workers, however, would not be allowed to break the contract or change employers before the contract has expired. Workers would continue to need their employer’s permission to travel, but the reforms introduce a government appeal mechanism.

The measures in the distilled roadmap are likely to be less politically sensitive than demands by trade unions and human rights groups that the kafala system be abolished in a country in which changes to the status of foreigners evoke existential fears.

Many of the Gulf state’s minority Qatari citizens, who account for a mere 12% of the country’s population, fear that changes would open the door to greater rights for foreigners which would threaten Qatari control of their society, culture, and system of government.

The political sensitivity is enhanced by some Qataris questioning whether expenditure on mega-events like the World Cup are appropriate at a time that reduced energy prices have forced the government to cut costs and announce plans to rewrite the social contract that granted the country’s rulers absolute power in exchange for cradle-to-grave welfare.

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James M Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg.